A Solemn Appeal - James White

disease; and also that nervous and cerebral disease
both produces depravity, and renders its victims
most miserable, where there is no other cause or
occasion. Behold in this 'wheel within a wheel'--in
the fact that this indulgence inflames the whole
body, and especially the brain and nervous system-
-the reason why this excess causes more insanity
than anything else except intemperance, which it
generally accompanies. Of the 128 males in the
McLean Lunatic Asylum, in Charlestown, Mass.,
in 1838, twenty-four were brought there by a single
form of this vice! The report of the Worcester
Insane Hospital for 1836, rates intemperance as the
most prolific cause of insanity, and this passion as
the second, of which it then had twenty-six victims.
In 1838, of its 199 male patients, 42, or almost onefourth,
were the victims of solitary indulgence. A
superintendent of a French lunatic asylum, says it
'is more frequently than is imagined, the cause of
insanity, particularly among the rich.' 'No cause,'
says Dr. Woodward, 'is more influential in
producing insanity. The records of the institutions
give an appalling catalogue of cases attributed to
it.'
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